


The Dust We Created

by anewkindofthrill



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, EreRiren Valentine's Week, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29426181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anewkindofthrill/pseuds/anewkindofthrill
Summary: Between the grass, there are two single blue flowers, opposing the coldness of the air. Thriving in the middle of destruction and isolation.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Eren Yeager, Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34
Collections: EreRiren Agenda Montly Events





	The Dust We Created

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Let's be lonely together.

Eren wanders through the ruins, through the destruction that is still so visible, a hundred years later. 

He is barely an adult, but of course he knows all about The Last War; the way his own people, the Attacking Founding Titan in particular, had been the perpetrators, but not unreasonably so. Marley has been equally guilty. 

Now he wanders destroyed Marleyan grounds as one of the Island Volunteers building up what’s still broken. What is left of Marley – left of the world, really – is relying on the help of the rich and prosperous country of Eldia, and so he helps. 

There’s almost nobody there; a lot of Eldians don’t care, especially not in the winter months when it can be cold and unforgiving in the north of Marley. Of course there is no functioning infrastructure, and there are merely 18 volunteers at the base camp. Eren doesn’t know where to start; is he supposed to move rocks, to clear up the street? Or should he rather try to find Marleyans who are hiding in the ruins, coax them into taking the food he is offering? 

The Marleyans hate him. Hate him even more when he tries to introduce himself to them by name. His parents are proud Eldians, proud Jägerists, and he is one of thousands of Erens on the island. 

Eren cannot imagine living so isolated, so caged in, as those Marleyans are in the ruins. He wants to help them, guide them into freedom and prosperity, so he looks for them. 

It feels unbelievable lonely. 

But Eren has been lonely for a very long time now. 

An hour later, he feels eyes on himself. It’s different than usual; Eren doesn’t have the feeling someone is hiding from him, they are just watching him. But when he turns around, he finds nobody. 

“Hello?”

No answer.

Eren’s family doesn’t understand his need to 

~~_ atone _ ~~

help Marleyans in need. He never connected to his parents, or to his peers at school. He was a quiet yet restless child, who always looked towards the horizon. When he turned 18, he immediately signed up for the volunteer programme. Nine months later, he’s been sent to where he is now, the north of Marley, in the middle of winter.

The volunteer uniforms bear the emblem of the Wings of Freedom. It makes Eren ache everytime he dons his coat.

And so, he wanders Marley, 

~~ under his coat of arms ~~

in his Samaritan’s clothes, trying not to be too unnerved by the prying eyes that seem to follow him. 

At some point, the watching stranger joins him, eerily quiet and almost unnoticed. Together, they walk. 

Eren only looks once at his new companion. The man wears the same coat as him, but it looks old and battered. He seems to be one of his supervisors, though he hasn’t met this particular man before

~~ this time around. ~~

“Sir,” Eren greets him, pressing out the honorific before biting his lip. He keeps his eyes down on the pavement. 

“You new?” The man asks tonelessly. 

“Yes. I have been here for two days.”

The dust of the ruins suddenly rises, encases them, and they have to shield their eyes. 

“And no one assigned you a task?” Under the passiveness of the man’s voice, there lies anger. 

Eren briefly wonders how the man knows that Eren isn’t just idling around. Then he smiles. 

“No, Captain.” 

Levi doesn’t even flinch.

“Come on then.” 

Supervisor Levi seems to be the only person truly interested in organizing an actual help mission. Most of the volunteers around are just there because they wanted to leave the island and take a year off. 

The other supervisors don’t care. 

So Levi takes Eren and they look for Marleyans in need of help alone. 

Levi has perfected his approach over the years he has been travelling Marley; he doesn’t speak to the dwellers in their ruins who seem to be frozen in fear and hatred. He just holds out a piece of bread, or offers a can of soup. The smell often carries, and brings out the people without them having to look. 

Eren and Levi keep coming back to families they have first found with their food, and help them to clear out whole houses to make them truly fit to live in. They are only two people, so they cannot do something as sustainable and impactful as bulding up a meaningful infracstructure, but they do as much as they can

The two volunteers talk very little. Their communication is used only to coordinate their work. Most of the time, Eren cannot bring himself to directly look at Levi.

He feels Levi watching him a lot. 

The other volunteers stay clear of those two, sensing that they really want to make a difference, 

~~ sensing the eery otherness of the two men. ~~

And so, Eren and Levi wander the devastation the Rumbling left behind a hundred years ago, helping people out of ther isolation and helplessness, lonely together. 

One day the two of them are heading out to a family in need of clothes. The first sunrays of spring break through the dust that is always in the air.

With their arms full, they pass by the town centre. There’s still a patch of grass in the middle, a piece of a world that doesn’t look grey and bleak under the white sky. 

Eren takes a second or two to notice that Levi has stopped in front of it. He turns around to his supervisor, who is looking down at the grass. 

Between the grass, there are two single blue flowers, opposing the coldness of the air. Thriving in the middle of destruction and isolation. 

Levi crouches down, holding the bundles of clothes protectively towards himself and away from the ground. 

“Look, Eren,” he says and Eren’s body is flooded with a million of emotions. “Those two made a decision. They chose to live.” 

Eren makes himself finally look at Levi, and it isn’t hatred or disdain he is met with, as he feared all those weeks, all those years. 

It is understanding. 

“It’s okay to choose to live, Eren.” 

And Eren realizes that he has been born into this world a second time. 

But this time, he doesn’t have to do things alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to to participate in the EreRiren Valentines Week 2021, but this might very well be my only entry, since work and life happened. We'll see.
> 
> I still hope you enjoyed it! And follow @ereriren_agenda on twitter for more content, they organized the event :)


End file.
